


Ghost

by RoleplayFanfics



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren Fluff, Ben has a second chance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Force Ghosts, Fucking with time travel, Funny force ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Not even a little canon compliant, Other, Plotty, Redeemed Ben Solo, Second Chances, Time Travel, Weird Plot Shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:01:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22347610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoleplayFanfics/pseuds/RoleplayFanfics
Summary: It was a rather outlandish and strange idea, certainly something risky which would worry his mother, which his uncle would disapprove of, and which he was rather certain no Jedi had attempted thus far.It was but a mere impulse, a desire to ease the regrets that were still with him, an impulse of curiosity to what he could accomplish.He could feel the spark of life fade from the body below him, he could feel the soul lose consciousness, and could only hope the boy was reunited with his family. Not even in the Force could he know everything. He experienced himself closing his eyes, fading.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Poe Dameron/Finn, Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written & edited by Nathan  
> Credit for the idea to Teddy
> 
> We don't really have a good explanation for this rather than that we recently rewatched the Back to the Future trilogy, and I feel a vague bit inspired by Sarah1281's absolutely amazing Harry Potter fanfic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4701869/chapters/10736366

It began with an idea.   
  
It was an idea of strange nature, one which might have needed a certain amount of consideration, which he neglected to consider. Then again, Ben Solo had always been a rather impulsive person.   
  
He was quite certain his mother would disapprove, or at the very least worry greatly, and Ben was more than done causing his mother pain.   
  
He was quite certain his uncle would tell him it was far too reckless.   
  
He was quite certain his grandfather would approve, but his grandfather’s lover would likely have lectured him about why Jedi never once had attempted such a thing, and the responsibility that came with their current existence.   
  
Still, the idea formed itself, as ideas tended to, on good or bad.   
  
He could blame it on his guilt. He could blame it on his nature of wanting to find out the truth. He could blame it on curiosity. He could blame it on the past. He could blame circumstances. He could blame the Universe for having given him cosmic space powers to begin with. He could blame the Force for accepting him upon his death.   
  
Perhaps it hadn’t been an idea as much as it had been a name, one stuck on his tongue ever since he passed on and left the future to be directed without his presence. Perhaps it was regret.   
  
No, a name had been enough.   
  
Time was a tricky concept once one had ceased to exist, once one had become one with the Force. Will was another tricky concept, he still had a mind and a will of his own, but eternity did something to you, once you are no longer part of the living world. Past, present and future melted together in one, and Ben had been advised to simply run with the flow, to never accidentally run against the stream. Still, he had never been that good at running with the stream.   
  
It was guilt. It was regret. It was a name.   
  
Ben remained in the shadows cast within the room, watching the children sit about, feeling all of their fear and unease about what was to come to them. He watched the far more well dressed, yet scrawny little redhead of a boy speak to the children, watched him reassure them. The child was reassuring them that there was nothing greater than having a future within the First Order, and how they would make their families and home planets proud. That was to say, those who had a family, and how those who didn’t would finally become someone. Ben could feel how the child didn’t entirely believe everything he was saying, he seemed somewhat skeptical, not because he didn’t believe in the concept of the Order, but rather because he was a rather skeptical and paranoid child to begin with. Even at such a young age, the child’s mind was unmistakable, even if it was but a storm compared to the hurricane which Ben had grown accustomed to over the years. 

_Hux._

Nobody could hear him, not even the child in question. 

Being fixed in time for the first time in long made him remember his regrets. There were a lot of things he regretted, so much so that he might as well regret most of his entire life. He had let himself become a monster, and one of the most powerful, evil and destructive forces in the Galaxy.   
  
The children stirred when an adult entered the room. It wasn’t the boy’s father, Ben knew the face of Brendol Hux, knew the face of the man who first created the Order. It had to be one of the man’s associates. Warily, one of the kids tugged at Hux’s arm, and the small boy sighed, before he slowly approached the grown man, and in a manner so very polite it wasn’t very befitting for a child his age, asked something about another child.   
  
The grown up shook his head, and in an instant Ben was assaulted with worry from some of the children. To his understanding, one of the children had gotten very sick, so very much so that he was likely not to make it through the night.   
  
Thinking was a bit of an issue as a ghost. In an instant, an instant he noticed far more clearly now that he was fixed in a set point in time, he was looking down at the child. Said child was shoved away in a corner of a different, more isolated, part of the ship, even if they had the decency to give the little boy some bedding. The adults in the surrounding didn’t seem to care too much for the child, rather, they expected to dispose of him as soon as he passed on. 

Blonde curly hair peeked up under the blanket, as well as part of a vaguely freckled forehead and nose. The child was breathing heavily, and from what Ben could feel, he wasn’t quite asleep as much as he was too far under to notice anything around him, and far too deep under to think clearly. All he could detect was a haze of memories, perhaps thoughts of his closest ones, something about siblings, something about his parents, horror filled images of their deaths, from the perspective of a child that did not understand why any of it had happened in the first place.   
  
Regret. Fear.   
  
Loneliness.   
  
Still used to having a body, Ben experienced himself sitting down next to the child, and tentatively reached out to stroke the boy’s hair.   
  
The locks moved with his hand. 

Something ached within him. He knew all too well the fear of being all alone, of believing he had lost everything, and of being sent into an unfamiliar place where he was told what his entire future would hold. Back in his own life, he had imagined that fear to be unique to his suffering as a strong user of the Force, but perhaps it was something every abandoned child turned soldier experienced. Maybe he had simply been blind to the suffering of others. 

The child was so very close to Death’s door that Ben could sense the forces of nature clutching at his soul. 

Carefully, he kept on stroking the boy’s hair, and the boy seemed to respond with calming down. Ben was hit by a sense of safety, as if the boy imagined his own father at his side, calming him, touching him, simply being there. Ben imagined that he, himself, would have yearned for the safety of his mother, rather than father. 

Such a young boy had already experienced losing everything important to himself, and was already losing before he had a chance to live. Ben never did have a chance to live as Ben Solo for very long, either; he never got to truly live before he was turned Jedi, then monster. So many things had gone wrong, there were so many things that could have been different. He could not quite tell if it was worse to never have a chance in the first place, or to ruin every chance one ever had in life. 

Still, he sat with the child, stroking the blonde hair dutifully. 

Upon his own passing, upon having saved Rey and thus proved that he had done a single thing right in life, he had been free of regrets, and ready to move on. It hadn’t been until far later, even in the balance of the Force, that his awareness couldn’t help but pick up on one regret after another. 

A more prominent regret was related to Hux, as the two of them had been having a rather strange relationship during his time with the Order. Hux had been the only person of important enough rank not too far from Ben’s own age, and before he had known it, Hux had started hating him for a myriad of reasons. In the frustration and fear of everything bigger, of bigger failures, Hux had been a point of focus, a way to relax, his petty rivalry being a very welcome distraction. In the end, he hadn’t even thought of Hux, or realised the fact that the man had been pointlessly killed after committing an act of bravery, which very much mattered for the end battle by keeping Poe Dameron, Finn and Chewie alive. He regretted not having been there, regretted not having said anything to Hux, regretted not telling the other that he already knew of the betrayal to come, regretted not giving the order to keep the ginger alive.   
  
Strangely, it was hard to focus on all his mass murdering and terrible acts, when he could think of the child in the other room, and the misery of a life the ginger had led. He had read far too much of it in the past-.. In the future. 

An idea formed in his head.   
  
It was a rather outlandish and strange idea, certainly something risky which would worry his mother, which his uncle would disapprove of, and which he was rather certain no Jedi had attempted thus far.   
  
It was but a mere impulse, a desire to ease the regrets that were still with him, an impulse of curiosity to what he could accomplish.   
  
He could feel the spark of life fade from the body below him, he could feel the soul lose consciousness, and could only hope the boy was reunited with his family. Not even in the Force could he know everything. He experienced himself closing his eyes, fading.   
  
\---

Once Ben opened his eyes again, the world seemed bigger, as if the room itself around him had increased in scale. A myriad of senses of the physical world assaulted him, resulting in him feeling groggy and sluggish, as if his entire body ached. Well, in all honesty, it was nothing compared to the various pain he had endured in his life as Kylo Ren, which was probably the only reason he managed to sit up rather immediately, the blanket falling down into his lap in the process.   
  
It was a bit of a surprise to find that he was still in the same room of the ship, which would indicate that he was still in the same point in time; he was still in the past. 

He had many times over felt what it was like to be someone else, not only at the times he could feel Rey all too closely. Being a Force user meant reading and hearing what people experienced and thought, from their own reference, hence, it took him awhile to realize that the world wasn’t bigger, as much as he was much much smaller than he was used to. 

In hindsight, the vague reflection of blonde hair and a tiny figure, in the metal wall next to him, should perhaps have been a clue. 

Oh.   
  
Uh, well, fuck.   
  
Clarity came to the small boy, upon Ben realising what he had done. He didn’t get much time to consider whether he had made yet another grave mistake, before an adult addressed him.   
  


“Aren’t you a fighter,” the adult almost sneered. Whoever the man was, seemingly a younger man, probably of lesser rank in the newly formed Order, his mind seemed more than annoyed with having to take care of children. _Damned nobodies._

  
Ben blinked a few times, realizing to his surprise that he was still hearing the man’s thoughts, as clearly as if they would have been spoken words.   
  
He-... didn’t know what to say really so he only nodded.   
  
He realized quickly that he didn’t even know what age the dead boy had been, his name, or his circumstances. How was a boy around this age even supposed to speak, one that was damaged from war and terror, unlike his own happy childhood. He-... felt like he should pretend, but with just a few moments of trying to get his little head to feel anything but a stinging headache he sighed. No, there wouldn’t be a point, he’d simply have to do what Force users did best.   
  
He was suddenly grabbed by the man, and made sure not to stir or defend himself. A tool was pressed into his ear, not very far, but enough to be ever so slightly uncomfortable. His skin felt sensitive yet, as if the fever had made it burn earlier. The machine made a small sound and the man retracted it, looking upon the numbers displayed.   
  
“How in-... you’re lucky, kid. Whatever made you pull through?”   
  
Ben drew a short, weak breath.   
  
“I-... wanted to live.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He needed help.
> 
> His first thought was to call for his mother, to very quickly realize that she was a good twenty five years from dying yet. A strange mixture of relief and dread filled him all in one. He couldn’t call his uncle either; Luke Skywalker was alive.
> 
> So, who could he call?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For you lovely and kind people who commented your interest in this fanfic: Thank you very much for your comments! Yes, I am going to continue writing it. -Nathan
> 
> Update: I am going to continue writing it once we have finished the Son of a Werewolf series.

Lucky for Ben, it seemed he wasn’t allowed to walk about and see the other children yet, and he was left alone in the same small space he had been shoved aside in, to begin with. 

So. Right. 

Ben realized that he probably had messed up a lot.   
  
The small child sat in the corner of his bed, idly studying his nimble little hands. He had been allowed to wash himself a bit earlier, which had led to him accessing a mirror, and to the realization that he couldn’t be past the age of ten, a closer guess might have been eight or nine. Perhaps, if he read his surroundings well enough, he might find out more information about himself. His own body, back in the day, had been known to have spots and moles over the skin, and it felt strange to be so… clean, and blonde for the matter. He was smaller, weaker by far, and fairly certain he was more than a head shorter than he had been at the age of ten, himself. It was starting to feel weird, seeing that he had never once remained in someone’s head long enough to feel unlike himself for past a whole day. 

He had no true idea what time and date it was, because it had been difficult to search the heads of the adults passing him; it seemed they had been in space long enough to not truly care for the date and time between different locations. A better clue was the fact that when he had seen Hux, he had looked to be around eleven or twelve, and he knew for a fact that the ginger was five years older than himself. So, he should be older than he used to be, possibly, probably.

… That meant he was probably around six or seven, and somewhere far away from wherever this ship was going, seemingly moving about in the outer rims of the Republic. It meant he was with his family, or perhaps he had even been brought to the Jedi temple by then-... no he was seven, or eight when that happened. It was hard to recall things that happened so long ago-... things which hadn’t happened yet. Damnit.   
  
Ben realized that he needed help. 

Wherever he was in space and time, whenever he was right now, the world was about to plunge into a disaster. The Late Emperor Palpatine was most probably on Exegol already, alive, scheming, planning everyone’s downfall. It probably wouldn’t be too long before the First Order was more prominently formed, before the alliance with Snoke. At least there seemed to be plenty of years left until Snoke would attempt to seduce him to the dark side, and his uncle would commit a grave mistake and betrayal.   
  
Endless numbers of people would die in the war. Planets would be destroyed. He could change it, do something about it. Although, even if he knew himself to still be a powerful, well disciplined force user, he was but a nameless child in the outer rim of some solar system.

He knew how the Order had started in the first place; Brendol Hux had constructed a training program for soldiers, stealing and taking children who were not ideal for fighting, stealing their identity and forcing them into a harsh program, turning them into tools of murder. As his army and numbers grew, as well as his alliances with old generals and survivors from the late Empire, so did his influence. The man had begun in the very worst places of the galaxy, cleaning up messes, saving the masses, making certain places would choose to obey the Order, in return for being saved.   
  
Ben imagined himself very much stuck… besides, the First Order was playing such a large role in everything to come that he very much wanted to influence it from the inside, from the beginning.   
  
He needed help.   
  
His first thought was to call for his mother, to very quickly realize that she was a good twenty five years from dying yet. A strange mixture of relief and dread filled him all in one. He couldn’t call his uncle either; Luke Skywalker was alive.   
  
So, who could he call?   
  
He knew his grandfather would likely answer, but after having finally become acquainted with the man, he was… doubtful it was all that good of an idea. Most of all, he needed help to make certain that his uncle wouldn’t commit the mistake of creating a monster. He was very doubtful that there was anything which Anakin Skywalker could say to change his stubborn son’s mind. Especially so given the fact that Luke’s resentment for the Jedi Order and ways all stemmed from his father’s mistakes. He remembered the name of his grandfather’s Master and lover, he had even met Obi-wan Kenobi upon his own passing, but very much doubted that he would receive any help from the man in the first place; Obi-wan was against anything which was risky and unconventional. Other than them, Luke had rather much neglected to tell too many details of the old Jedi Order; he could call Master Yoda, he supposed, but that was a Master which had upheld the old Jedi traditions, and well, Ben wasn’t very much a supporter of those traditions. He vaguely recalled the fact that Anakin Skywalker had an apprentice once, but he couldn’t recall her name, neither could he know whether or not she had survived all these years.   
  
Devastated he curled up in the corner, biting his lower lip in an act of frustration. Think. There had to be someone-... Hold on.   
  
Wasn’t there a grey Jedi back in the day? Wasn’t there a man who had rejected the teachings of the Jedi Order. The man who had found Anakin Skywalker in the very first place. Obi-wan Kenobi’s Master, Ben believed.   
  
A grey Jedi was the title of a Jedi which had gone astray without falling to the dark side, who decided against the Jedi code and lived with emotional fulfillment. Maybe that would be a man who understood the weight of what was to come, who wouldn’t simply call it the natural order of everything.   
  
What had been the man’s name again…   
  
Qui-..something… Djinn? 

It was worth a try. The biggest problem wasn’t calling a stranger; he needed someone which would listen to a very outlandish idea, something Jedi would not generally accept, because it went against all their teachings of natural order.   
  
Ben focused. He focused his every sense of being to connect with the ideas and stories he had heard of the man. 

Upon his passing, he had been informed by his grandfather of the fact that he had been calling in the wrong direction, in all his days of Kylo Ren. That had been an… embarrassment. Calling to the light felt unfamiliar, strange, but… good in a sense. 

Silence.   
  
Ugh, he had to try harder, maybe if he envisioned everything he could recall in the sense of what he had been taught about his grandfather, and about the man in question. He wished he would have met the man through the force, before accidentally ending up in the past. 

Silence. 

Ben needed a change of strategy. He closed his eyes, then he envisioned and imagined a line of thoughts; he imagined the experience of seeing potential in Anakin Skywalker, when everyone else only saw potential risk. He envisioned believing in his, back then young, grandfather’s potential. He imagined seeing the innocence of a child and deciding that the child deserved a chance, for he was but a child.   
  
_He was far from innocent a child._

Ben heard a chuckle and opened his eyes, catching the glance of a faint blue sheen, and what seemed to be robes very familiar in shape and structure to the not-actually-Jedi. 

_You should have felt his mind upon finding he had special abilities. He was-... unique, unhinged, prepared to go far._

Ben glanced up to meet a pair of kind eyes, eyes which seemed to not only be looking at him, but… more. A shudder ran down his spine, he couldn’t quite describe what the man seemed to be looking at. The man was tall, very tall. His hair was long and his appearance younger than anything which Ben had expected from the old Jedi masters.   
  
_Regretfully, I died before reaching the age of proclaimed wisdom which you’re referring to._

“Oh.”   
  
What was more, the man was unlike anything Ben had ever felt. He could only describe the sense of the man’s calm aura as… balance. Acceptance. Balance. Awareness. It made the man feel like a beast in slumber, a docile and calm force of immense power. Was that what being a grey Jedi meant? Was balance more powerful than anything the Sith could offer with their inherited tricks and gifts? Ben could feel the hair on his arms stand on edge.   
  
A memory flashed past his mind. One in which Hux had mocked his dedication to the Dark Side, a side which Ben now knew was but a concept and imagination. Ben had been in a lot of pain, strained by the light pulling at his sense of self, torn and hurt, and Hux had noticed; he always somehow noticed despite claiming to himself and Ben that he didn’t care. Then, Hux had asked a question, out of ignorance; he had asked why one had to choose a side of the Force, why one couldn’t simply have both to be the strongest. To the General, the Force was but mere space magic, and the man had little to no understanding for the concept of the force of all matter. How ironic that it seemed Hux hadn’t been wrong, it was almost annoying, but Ben supposed he deserved the annoyance brought upon him by his own choices.   
  
Once more the Force ghost chuckled and sat down in front of him, cross legged, right there on the floor. _Don’t be so very harsh on yourself, young one; you are considering a concept alien to even the oldest of Jedi Masters._

Ben grimaced at that and sighed. “It doesn’t exactly make me feel better…” he started, then looked over the man again. “You are Obi-wan Kenobi’s Master, I assume?” 

_That is correct, my name is Qui-gon Jinn, and you are Anakin Skywalker’s grandson._

  
Ben was still slightly taken aback by the man’s calm and kind smile.   
  
_You expect me to be upset with you? I suppose there would be some sense in that, not even your grandfather took a risk such as this._   
  
“So you know then? All of it? You’ve seen it all?”   
  
_Yes, there was little else to pass the time._   
  
Ben took a deep breath, which ended with him coughing slightly, from his dry throat. He stared straight into the eyes of the strange, powerful essence of a man, not aware that he was holding his breath.   
  
“... Will you help me?”


End file.
